A combo Behind the Scenes and Exclusive Writing Lab exploring methods of coping while writing about our lives. Readers are also invited to share their survival techniques
Hi and welcome:
How do you do this work and not be turned inside out?
How do you keep going when…well…it’s so painful to write about the past?
And does it ever get easier? I mean, do we ever figure this thing out and stop feeling so…raw?
I’m writing a fifth memoir tentatively titled The Summer of ‘72 or maybe I will call it What the Hell was I Thinking? Hand to heart, it is tough. My great hope is to take this memoir the distance and not just have it be an accounting of unhappiness with some tweaky little nod to “a happy ending” based on simplistic, even sentimental notions, of what true happiness means (money, getting the guy, fame). But being here in the lines means that I will forget that healing doesn’t mean I’ll never hurt again, but rather, I will hurt differently. That’s all.
Back to the beach, I go. Back for another long walk among wind and waves.
Here is what I know now that I didn’t in the early days.
The glorious gift of this writing is that you and I are willing to say “this is me,” this is what ails me, and when we start writing our stories down, we lift the weight of that remarkable reflexive consciousness, and do a few reps.
Get. Stronger.
Get. Stronger.
But unlike this buffed-out wonder who can set her barbell down once her reps are done, the mind isn’t so easily dispatched. The mind is not like a bicep (drat). Thought has its way. If not set down kindly, gently, and in a welcoming way, thought can become a whirling dervish of mayhem that tangles into our emotions and pushes us poor humans to do things that cause chaos.
A few examples of my whirling dervish disasters:
I drank too much. Ate too much. Spent too much. Picked a fight with the wrong person. Shut myself off from comfort. Worked too hard when I should have stopped and done something else…knitted, taken a walk, soaked in a nice hot tub. And worse…I’ve told myself lies about how I was utterly alone in this world. Abandoned. And worse still, that I deserved both.
Sound familiar?
As I wrap up a day of writing The Summer of ‘72, I offer this: Don’t do as I’ve done.
There is a way to buffer the pain, remove the sting, and treat this work with the reverence it deserves.
One such way is to open and close your writing time with a ritual. This doesn’t have to be a big, showy deal, or a time-consuming ordeal. A ritual can be small, elegant, and chill. It’s not what you do, it’s how you do it. The best rituals show attention is being paid, that the time holds an element of the sacred, and that you recognize you are part of something greater than yourself.
A Few Steps:
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